Contents

Description

Pat Conaty:

"The aim of the project is to create "socially useful money organisations" (SUMO) and to eventually co-build a digital platform.

If you can imagine a Commons alternative to VISA you get the picture. Why should all credit be debt based? If large and small credit unions, CDFIs, co-operative banks came together and built common cause and unity, Financial Democracy could be made real and practical. But we need the Commons and democratically owned platforms."

Additional Resources

"What strikes me about this wonderful paper is how he creatively frames an outline of the new money commons architecture and he approaches this challenge in a multi-level way from global to national to regional. He links insightfully the fossil fuel crisis to the crash in 2008 and also highlights what the late Margrit Kennedy drew attention to, the embedded interest costs in public services and other essential goods. What is marvelous about this paper is the way he shows how the work to build resilience through co-operative innovation in community energy, food sovereignty, community land trusts (are implied) and regional currency can be brought together in a synergistic way. He argues for a provisioning system as Mary Mellor and Frances Hutchinson set out so well in Politics of Money book in 2002. But he also draws attention to the kilowatt hour forms of money and tethering ideas Shann Turnbull has been articulating."